Brunch and basketball! Nets and Spurs play a matinee at Barclays

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The house cooking isn’t hitting proper now. The Brooklyn Nets got here residence to tackle the reigning champs, the Milwaukee Bucks. Sadly for the followers at Barclays, the Nets got here out flat once more and received knocked around on nationwide TV. The L was their fifth straight at residence. They’re nonetheless within the prime a part of the Japanese Convention, however the questions going through the workforce are rising by the day.

The opponent right now would be the San Antonio Spurs. Gregg Popovich and pals are nonetheless looking for their manner, but it surely’s been powerful. They had been in Philadelphia on Friday evening and misplaced to the 76ers by 19. They’ll be on the town yet one more evening as they’ll make a journey over to MSG to play the New York Knicks on Monday evening.

The place to observe the sport

YES Community on TV. WFAN on radio. Be sure to set your alarms as this one will get began at excessive midday.

Accidents

No Joe Harris. Kyrie Irving is again tomorrow. LaMarcus Aldridge is questionable with proper foot soreness.

Keldon Johnson, Tre Jones, Devin Vassell, Doug McDermott, Derrick White, and our previous buddy Thaddeus Younger are in COVID protocols. Zach Collins is out with a left ankle stress fracture.

The sport

For those who’re a baseball fan (go Mets), then you definately’re fairly aware of this setup. East Coast workforce performs a day recreation and instantly flies to the West Coast for a ten p.m. recreation the subsequent evening. Powerful little bit of enterprise for the Nets, however with all the COVID points affecting the league and world, you simply must do the very best you possibly can given the circumstances.

Becky Hammon is in the home this afternoon, and whereas she didn’t take the New York Liberty job, she’ll be joining a stacked Las Vegas Aces squad this spring. As for the Liberty, they received their new coach in Sandy Brondello. We coated her first day and what she brings to the Liberty here.

This was one of many coolest footage from final summer time’s Olympics:

XHTP-JAPAN-SAITAMA-OLY-BASKETBALL-MEN’S FINAL-AWARDING CEREMONY

It was superior to see Pop get the gold.

Pop’s star on Staff USA hopes to maintain filling up the stat sheet this afternoon. Kevin Durant confirmed as much as the get together on Friday evening and scored his standard 29 factors together with 9 rebounds and 7 assists on hyper environment friendly taking pictures. Alongside the best way, KD handed the legendary Patrick Ewing for twenty third on the all time NBA scoring listing. Durant is doing every little thing doable to maintain the Nets close to the highest of the East, and even with the struggles at residence, he’ll give the Nets nearly as good an opportunity as any workforce to win all of it when the stress is amplified within the playoffs.

One factor in regards to the Spurs that’s been constant throughout the previous three many years is that they’re an extremely disciplined membership. This season, they’re sixth in turnover fee and sixth in opponent’s free throw fee. Brooklyn might want to take full benefit of the alternatives they get and get off to a greater begin. They preserve falling behind by a ton early and having to dig their manner out. It’s not a great way of doing enterprise.

Cam Thomas received some prolonged run, and made probably the most of it. He performed 28:53, scored a really good 14 factors and gave the Nets one other participant that may assault the basket and create some rim stress. That’s been lacking from the Nets for a lot of the yr and if Thomas is again within the common rotation, he’ll assist spruce up the offense.

We is not going to see many threes tried right now. The Spurs are twenty ninth in threes tried whereas the Nets are twenty fifth.

A number of recreation previews in the past, we mentioned the profession excessive in minutes per recreation Patty Mills has performed this season. It seems prefer it’s began to take its toll, and Steve Nash talked about it after Friday’s recreation:

“I believe we’ve seen him sort of nearly be overused and over-dependent on and I believe it’s been troublesome for him at occasions to proceed his stage of play as a result of we’ve overburdened him. He’s been terrific on and off the ground. I imply, he’s unbelievable to have in our group. However we now have requested him to play loads of 30s and excessive 30s (minutes) throughout these kinda final month or so. And with out Joe. with out Kyrie, that’s rather a lot.”

Harris is a couple of weeks away from returning and the workforce might be spending much more time exterior of NYC within the subsequent few weeks in order that ensures Irving might be there as nicely. Within the meantime, the workforce hopes Mills can get away of his latest funk.

The middle matchup might be attention-grabbing. Jakob Poetl is without doubt one of the league leaders in blocks and rebounds as he’s helped the Spurs maintain groups to solely 61.4 p.c contained in the restricted space, second greatest mark within the NBA. With LMA nonetheless battling his foot challenge, which means extra alternatives for Nic Claxton. This web site is professional dunking on individuals so we undoubtedly loved this

The Nets want Clax to maintain enjoying huge. The extra he does, the extra forceful the Nets might be on either side of the ball.

Participant to observe: Dejounte Murray

Because the Spurs transfer into the subsequent era, Murray would be the man main them on the court docket. He’s second amongst guards in rebounds and fourth within the NBA in assists as he’s taken a star flip this yr. Like rattling close to everybody within the NBA, he was in COVID protocols which had him out of motion for 2 weeks. Now that he’s again, he’ll look to assault, assault, and assault some extra as he places stress on opposing defenses. He’s ninth within the league in drives to the basket a recreation, and for the Nets, they’ll attempt to wall him off as greatest they’ll.

Tempo, tempo, tempo! When the Nets play quick and transfer the ball, their offense is elite. Once they take a very long time to get into their units and aren’t capable of generate clear seems shortly, it permits defenses to load up on the celebrities and put stress on the function gamers to create pictures beneath troublesome circumstances. Which means James Harden must be higher. He had a dreadful recreation in opposition to the Bucks on Friday evening and because the level guard, he has to maintain issues flowing and keep lively. He didn’t get a couple of calls on his drives to the basket and that helped to brief circuit his night. The Nets want all of the scoring punch they’ll get exterior of KD, and which means Harden needs to be that man evening in and evening out. He can definitely do it, so it’s not the most important ask on the planet.